Feeding frenzy
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2007
1
103
131
Trip End
Jun 2009
Monkey Mia,
Western Australia,
Australia
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
First stop however was to be Hamlin about 30km off the main highway, a small (and by small I mean 1 shop, 1 campsite, 1 house, 1 toilet block and a dog called bernard) place famous for its quary and the nearby stromatolites - only1 of a small number of places in the world to have them. So what are stromatolites I hear you cry - Well they are the building blocks of life - the earliest recorded living single celled organism on earth, estimated to date back over 3.5 billion years. They are basically living rocks, the ones which we saw roughly a few thousand years old, however scientists have been able to use these to create a more detailed understanding of what the planet was like 3.5 billion years ago, and in conclusion they recogn it weren't too nice a place to live!.
Anyway back to the story - We arrived at Hamlin and decided to head straight over to the Stromatolites - the sun was baking, but instead of taking plenty of water, dousing ourselves in suncream and wearing a hat (It was after all midday - Mad Dogs and English men !!) we decided it would only take 10 minutes and to not bother with the extra hassel. A climb up some steps and down the other side brought us into what looked to be a ruined roman ampitheatre, but was infact the remains of one of the last areas where quarying of a rare rock was still allowed. The rock is Shell Rock, made entirely of millions and billions of timy little shells which have been compacted, crushed, buffed, squeezed and compacted some more to make them ideal for building with. There are few houses left standing which were built with this material and these have been given permission to use some of the remaining rock from the quarry if repairs are needed, to ensure historical accuracy with the restoration. The sun was beating down and with the brilliant white of the shell rock quarry we were soon regretting our decision not to take water. We pushed on and soon after arrived at the stromatolites via a walkway over the water and ontop of them, preventing direct access to the stomatolites and keeping peoples feet dry from the sea water which was all around them. They are weird looking rocks basically, scattered closely together some stumped by the lack of seawater around them, others still partialy under water most of the time, using the nutriants to continue growing. A facinating place - However an extremely hot one and after 20 minutes we had both had more than enough and trotted quickly back to the van for some shade and a sarnie before heading off.
Next stop was shelly beach - over 90km of beach made up of the afforementioned tiny shells. Before our arrival however we crossed over a cattle grid, fenced both sides as far as the eye could see, making it look like we were entering a maximum security facility somewhere in the US. In fact this was the start of "Project Eden" a project which incorporates a fence stretching from one side of the peninsular to the other (at a guess some 200km) in order to restore only endemic animals into the peninsular and more importantly to keep ferrel animals out. There have been many success stories with the project which had been running for about 8 years, however some animals like the really small mouse like marsupials were failing to thrive even after multiple attemps to reintroduce them. Back to Shelly beach, we were amazed at the size of this almost brilliant white beach and more importantly upon close inspection mesmorised by the fact it was made up of billions and billions and billions and billions and billions (you get the idea) of these tiny little shells. It was a photographers dream, especailly for the abstract artist and we spent quite some time enjoying the view and experimenting with the camera. Further down the road and closer to Monkey Mia we stopped in briefly at eagle bluff, a high lookout over the sea, where you could look down into the clear waters below and see sharks and fish and sometimes Dugongs or Manatees/Mermaids swiming in the sea. Dugongs are beautiful but very shy creatures usually found in the weeds hiding and feeding on the vegitation. Although we were high up, the view was spectacular and we felt privilidged to be able to view the sharks and other sea creatures without worry that we were disturbing their natural routine.
We arrived in Denham late in the day and decided to proceed straight to the first campsite we found, eat some tucker and turn in. The site was pretty much deserted and after being blessed with an amazing sunset as we munched into our noodle soup and Goon, it was time for some shut eye.
The following more saw us into town and the tourist information office. We had been recommended the place on its amazing interactive centre all about the area, however it seemed only to drone on once again about Gondwanaland, which by now we were pretty fed up of, so we gave it a miss. As we had missed the days feeding down at Monkey Mia and accomodation at the resort was astonomical, we decided to stay around Denham for the day and get an early start the next morning. We headed out to the nearby "Little Lagoon" aptly named for its not so large size! This tiny, perfectly circular lagoon, left over when the sea receeded thousands of years ago, was ideal for a quick dip, although only being knee deep, did not really offer much in the way of relief from the ever present intense glare of the sun. We decided to do the aussie thing and have a bbq that afternoon on our newly found campsite and made dirty burgers which we devoured before heading to the pool and enjoying a cooling afernoon dip chatting to a lovely couple from Tasmania.
I dragged Rachel out of bed at 6.00am kicking and screaming and after a swill we hit the road in order to be first in line for the dolphins at Monkey Mia. We were there by 6.30am and headed straight for the water where only a couple of people were already standing, watching the dolphins play in the shallow waters, they were so close it was amazing. Mothers and young calves, the former watching for the first signs of the feeders, the later unaware of what was going on, wanting nothing more than to play. We later found out that one of the little un's was about 3-4 weeks old, the other just days - Even for a bloke they were very cute! We spent a couple of hours by the waters edge for the majority of the time along with 500 others, watching people get picked out to feed some of the dolphins - only the female dolphins are fed, and only about a 10th of their daily fish intake to ensure they continue to hunt themselves. We were both secretly hoping, Rachel i think more than me, that we would be one of the chosen few from the ammased hords, picked by random to feed the dolphins but this was not to be. After the feeding we headed up to pay our park fee's when Rachels face dropped and she hollered "Some B'stads nicked me Havaianas"! Indeed from where she had left her well travelled, well worn simple black sandals none we to be found. We walked the beach until the crowds thinned looking at everyones feet in the hope of finding them - but to no avail, all that did remain were some oversized Havaianan immitations - which Rachel had to put to use. How anyone could have mistaken her tatty authentic (From Brazil don't you know!) Havaianas for these flippers we will never know, but they did and even after an hour of looking at feet, with people thinking we had some weird fetish, we were unable to track Rachels down. Enough time wasted we decided to take a walk into the sand dunnes, up to a bird hide and back to the resort - about 4km. The sun was already hot, but with the breeze from the sea, it broke the heat from being blistering to simmering - a welcome relief!. The hide was a little disappointing although we managed to get an awesome shot of a dragonfly sat on a leaf. We headed over the dunnes, burning our feet the further we went, walking quickly like the lizard from the Carlsberg advert to avoid prolonged contact with the hot sand. Back to the sea we catch the waders taking full advantage of the outgoing tide, along with the huge pelicans patiently waiting for the dolphin feeding frenzy to recommence the following morning, for any scraps which may be left over.
Comments
So strange!
Too bad you got your shoes stolen... I hope you find some nicer ones soon.
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager